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Call it a silent killer: some 6 percent of the U.S. population has some kind of voice disorder, most of those resulting from scarring of the vocal cords that can lead to diminishing or even total loss of the ability to speak. Giving voice to the voiceless, a team of Harvard and MIT researchers have developed a synthetic, injectable material that can be implanted into scarred vocal cords to restore their function. More »
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Current prostheses allow individuals who have lost a hand to grasp and hold objects, but regaining their sense of touch has been out of the question. But a new robotic hand is giving its wearers a new tactile sensation. More »
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Imagine waking up one morning and being unable to speak. Your mind still churns away, trying to form words, but no sounds will come out. It's like the bleak ending of Harlan Ellison's I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream only, you know, real. This is a fact of life for many people with varying levels of paralysis, who have lost the ability to control their vocal chords, lips, and tongue. But an experimental brain implant promises to change their lives. More »
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Apparently the new i-limb system from Touch Bionics may need to be "scaled back" to be used by humans. The system is a robotic hand-arm combination for people missing all or part of their arms. One of its inventors admitted, "The i-Limb system is better than a human arm. It is faster and can lift heavier weights than a human arm . . . A patient would have the potential to hurt themselves or other people with it, as it is actually better than a human arm. It could do damage." Oh hai, sign me up! [Medgadget] More »
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